This is No Chump-Change

After Alex Zanardi clinched his second straight CART FedEx champ car championship four races from the end of the season, and shortly thereafter announced that he was going to return to Formula One next year, speculation arose that the feisty little Italian might skip the year’s final race at California Speedway.

“Not so,” he said. “There are a million reasons why I will race at Fontana.”

That would be the $1-million first-place prize for the Marlboro 500 on Sunday.

“Besides, I am under contract until Dec. 31, so I am obligated to be there to race. I would never turn away from a race. I enjoy it too much.”

If Zanardi wins, it will match the $1 million he will receive Monday night at the CART banquet in the Century Plaza Hotel, and give him a lucrative sendoff after three years’ racing in the United States.

“Money is wonderful, especially now that we have a little baby, but what matters most is the winning, the competition, the excitement I feel when I get in a race car,” said Zanardi, who won seven races in Chip Ganassi’s red Target Reynard-Honda, including four in a row, to dominate the CART season just as he did last year.

“Racing is my passion, and it has been my good fortune to be with a team that gives me a chance to win races. That’s the dream of every driver.”

Next year, Zanardi, 32, will drive in Formula One for Frank Williams. His place on Ganassi’s team will be taken by Juan Pablo Montoya of Colombia, a Williams test driver this season.

“It was a hard decision to leave Chip Ganassi,” Zanardi said. “I would not have left if I had not been going to one of the best teams in Formula One. I had a great time with my team here, great results, great friendships, but in life, if you achieve something, you then need to try something else and hope to achieve that. That is what made me decide to return to Formula One.”

That, and the fact that his wife, Daniela, was homesick for Italy while living in Noblesville, Ind., and the fact that they wanted to raise their son, Niccola, in the home country.

And too, Zanardi was anxious to discard the name ‘Alex,’ one that Ganassi had given him three years ago, and return to his real name: Alessandro.

In three years as a CART driver, Zanardi won 15 races and 10 poles in 51 starts. The only race he missed was last year’s Marlboro 500 at Fontana where he suffered a mild concussion in two crashes during practice. His place was taken by Indy 500 winner Arie Luyendyk, an Indy Racing League driver, who crashed hard during the race.

“When I came to Ganassi three years ago, I had never driven on an oval, but I learned to adapt, like a chameleon, to different situations. I like what CART demands. It is like the World Cup in skiing, it’s not just slaloms, or just downhills, but to be able to win you must be competent in different events.

“Techniques are quite different from European racing. In Europe, the first corner is so important, you try to do everything at the start. In CART, you can be more patient and not be so concerned how you come out of the first turn. You learn to take advantage of other drivers’ mistakes.”

Ganassi, whose team has won three straight championships--Jimmy Vasser won in 1996--said Zanardi is leaving with the team’s best wishes.

“I told Alex that we would be glued to our TV sets early Sunday mornings next year to see how he’s doing,” said Ganassi. “We are going to miss his sense of humor, his refreshing approach to racing, to life itself. His passion for racing rubbed off on all of us and we are going to miss him as a friend, more even than as a driver.”

As long as he races, Zanardi’s career in the United States will be linked to the impossible pass he made in Laguna Seca’s Corkscrew turn two years ago to beat Bryan Herta on the last lap of the race. He still smiles at the thought of it, a daring move across the dirt that caught the attention of racing fans throughout the world.

“Ah, Laguna Seca,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “I will never forget that because when you are a little kid dreaming, you always try to win an important race on the last lap, to pull off a move that will make everybody jump to their feet and scream. To actually do it was just incredible.”

That was the final race of 1996, the day Vasser clinched the championship, and it set the tone for Zanardi’s two-year run as CART’s winningest driver.

Another incident, following his win in 1997 at Long Beach, also contributed to his popularity. That was the day he introduced his famous trademark “doughnut” to fans as a display of excitement over winning. The “doughnut,” which consists of spinning his car in circles, causing black smoke to boil off the tires, did not please CART officials, but public response was so favorable that he continued it.

In what could be his final display of exuberance, Zanardi spun five doughnut circles after winning last Sunday in Surfers Paradise, Australia.

“It’s not something that is so difficult, or so dangerous,” he explained. “With 900 horsepower, all you do is stop the car, press the throttle a little bit, release the clutch quickly and the wheels start to spin. Then you just turn the steering wheel and the car spins by itself. All you need is a little bit of room.”

After one win, at Elkhart Lake, Wis., the Target crew celebrated one of his doughnuts by saluting him with real doughnuts in victory circle.

“My boys,” as he refers to his crew, “are the greatest bunch in the world. I’m the lucky devil who gets to go home at 5 o’clock every day when they’re still working hard. The passion and effort they put into the job they do, it’s something you can’t get with money.

“I think the most important thing for me is when I show up in the morning and I look in those faces, sometimes a little tired because they had a late night and a very early morning, but they always have a smile. That tells me, undoubtedly, if they could pick out of a million drivers, they would still choose me.

“That gives me the confidence and strength to go out and fight as hard as I can.”

When Zanardi finished fourth in the Molson Indy Vancouver last Sept. 6, he became only the third driver in CART history to win back-to-back championships. Rick Mears did it in 1981-82 and Bobby Rahal in 1986-87. His four straight wins, at Detroit, Portland, Cleveland and Toronto, tied another CART record established by Al Unser Jr. in 1990.

With his first PPG Cup win in 1997, he joined Jacques Villeneuve of Canada as the only CART drivers to win rookie of the year and the championship in consecutive seasons. Curiously, it is Villeneuve whom Zanardi will replace next year.

“As I said a year ago when I won my first championship for Chip Ganassi Target, and as I have been saying all along this year, everyone on the team deserves some of the credit, because so many people have contributed to our success.”

None more, however, than Mo Nunn, Zanardi’s chief engineer and private confidant.

“Mo Nunn has been like a father to me, I would like to take him to Formula One with me,” Zanardi said. “He is the best mechanic I have ever had, and he is one of my closest friends.”

Nunn, a former Formula One engineer, said Zanardi’s success stems from his will to win and his attitude as a team player with Vasser.

“A lot of drivers race and will tell you that they can win if they have this, if they have that, and the other,” Nunn said. “There aren’t many drivers who can actually get through to the checkered flag. Alex has that tremendous will to win. No matter where he is on the track, no matter what happens during the race, he doesn’t give up.”

A case in point was Cleveland last year, when Zanardi started on the pole, was penalized back to 22nd place after 37 of 90 laps, yet managed to work his way up through the field on a road circuit to win.

“I cannot do anything better than what I did today,” he said at the time. “All credit must go to my engineer, Mo Nunn, who gave me a perfect car. I never thought anything was lost. I waited until after the race to get mad [about the penalties]. While the race was on, I did not have any time to get mad, I was too busy driving.”

Four-time Super Bowl winning quarterback Joe Montana, a partner with Ganassi with the Target team, said, “I’ve been associated with a lot of comebacks in my day. This one was great.”

After Vasser and Zanardi won eight of the first 11 races this season, Nunn said that the cooperation between the two drivers was a major factor in the team’s championship season.

“To me, it’s the best pairing I’ve ever seen,” Nunn said. “They are really good friends and talented drivers. They’re genuinely happy for each other when one wins, even if the other has bad luck. If Jimmy has to leave the track early or has a plane to catch, he leaves a little note in Alex’s locker. Their bond is really the key that has made the team so successful.

“There’s no animosity on either side of the pits. There’s never any them and us business in our team.”

Vasser: “First, we try to beat everyone else. Then we try to race ourselves.”

It worked this year. Zanardi clinched the championship earlier than anyone in history and going into the final race Vasser is third, behind Dario Franchitti.

“Jimmy gave everything he had to stop me from winning the championship, he was my toughest competition, but we never stopped sharing technical information,” Zanardi said.

“I regret having to leave friends, but I have no doubt my leaving will not hurt Chip Ganassi’s team. He has signed a promising replacement, and having known and worked for Chip for three years, I know him as a very ambitious man who is very capable of continuing the team’s winning ways.

“You have only to look at what Chip did in the past. He switched to Honda engines when it was not necessarily the thing to do, he switched to Firestones [tires] and he took a chance on an inexperienced driver who had never driven on an oval, and he listened to his new driver when he had fresh ideas. I am sure that he has the organization in place to continue.”

First, though, there is a little detail waiting on Sunday: winning the Marlboro 500 and its $1-million bonus.

“It would mean I have achieved results I never felt possible in my deepest dreams. It would give me something, when I am old enough to sit in front of the fireplace, holding my grandchildren, to tell them without having to exaggerate.”